Francine knocks down power lines as it makes landfall

AccuWeather

Francine's powerful winds knocked power lines down across key roadways in Louisiana as it made landfall, as storm chaser Aaron Rigsby showed live on AccuWeather.

Transcript

00:00Now, we have team coverage of Francine with crews all along the Gulf Coast.

00:03Let's get the latest from storm chaser Aaron Rigsby in Duloc in Louisiana.

00:10He is in the center part, I believe, center part of Terrebonne County.

00:14And it looks to me, Aaron, that you're in the eye now, you're in the western, eastern

00:19side of that eye wall.

00:20It looks as though while things are still rough and tough, it's not as bad as it was.

00:24Yeah, good evening, Bernie.

00:27That's absolutely correct.

00:28Now, as you can tell behind me, it's not exactly a calm eye, but there is no rain right

00:33now.

00:34So that indicates that I'm approaching that center most portion of the hurricane.

00:36We're still getting these really gusty winds, sometimes at 60, 70 miles an hour.

00:41That's causing dangerous conditions because a lot of that loose debris that's laying around

00:44is just being flung all over the place.

00:46And I've seen a few residents kind of poking their heads out of their houses, assessing

00:50the situation.

00:51So they definitely have to stay clear of those.

00:53But you can see behind me right here, it's kind of lightening up.

00:55You can see some of those darker areas around me, indicating the kind of eye wall area that

00:59we were referring to.

01:00And I'll tell you, this one turned out like a flip of a switch.

01:03We went from 40 to 50 mile an hour winds to a sustain of at least 80 to 90 miles an hour

01:07at times.

01:08And we were really in the thick of it.

01:10Yeah.

01:11And have you seen much damage thus far, Aaron?

01:14We were talking with Tony Laubach, he's in Houma, and he was showing a lot of power lines

01:19beginning to spark.

01:22Have you seen any of that in Duloc?

01:26So in Duloc, there's actually a lot more damage than in Houma.

01:29The gradient was very, very sharp.

01:32And in Duloc, a little bit further to the south, there was a couple of roofs that were

01:36peeled off of homes that sold severed trailer houses that had part of their roof peeled

01:41back and many trees down.

01:42I actually had to drive around a tree that had uprooted onto the roadway, nearly blocking

01:48it completely.

01:49And as you can see right here behind me, this is a cable line right here that's across

01:52the roadway that leads into town here.

01:54This is the main artery that goes from Dubac all the way up to Houma.

01:59So this is blocking the roadway here and nobody can get through at the moment.

02:01So they get this out of the way.

02:03All right.

02:04What is the plan as you go through the rest of this storm?

02:06Are you going to hunker down?

02:07I would assume you're not going to try to travel in this.

02:12So the way that I'm actually going to play this is I'm going to document the center most

02:15portion of the guy.

02:16Before that secondary eyewall comes through, which I want to add, just because it's clear

02:20now that they're up the woods just yet, we still have a second eyewall to come through.

02:25And I'm going to shift my attention toward the tornado threat into the overnight and

02:29morning hours tomorrow into Alabama and Mississippi.

02:32With that dry air kind of pushing into the east side, we can see a situation like with

02:37Barrow where there could be a few of the stronger tornadoes associated with this hurricane,

02:41especially into tomorrow.

02:42All right.

02:43Aaron Rigsby live in Duloc, Louisiana.

02:47That is in Terrebonne Parish.

02:49He's going to be dealing with the western side of that eyewall here shortly.

02:53Aaron stay safe.

02:54We'll talk to you.

02:55Let me get back to the radar.

02:56This is what Aaron was talking about.

02:57He's talking about the western eyewall here.

03:00This is it right in here where the winds start to come back in, although out of a different

03:05direction.

03:06He was dealing with the winds coming in out of the south southeast.

03:09Now he'll be dealing with the winds out of the west northwest.

03:13He was also talking about the tornado threat here.

03:15I want to zoom out a little bit and take you into these feeder bands on the eastern side

03:21of the center of circulation.

03:23In particular, this band coming in toward Gulfport and eventually in toward Hattiesburg.

03:29You see these individual cells.

03:30These already look very suspicious to me.

03:33Here it is.

03:34Here's one.

03:35Here's one.

03:36Here's one.

03:37I'd also keep an eye on this thunderstorm south of Gulfport here.

03:40There's a lot of lightning with that.

03:41I wouldn't be shocked if we had a tornado warning coming out with that here shortly.

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